Symphony in Rick Minor
by quartzing
Summary: Rick passes the point of no return; Morty gets a job. Rated T for major violence in chapter 2.
1. chapter 1

There she was: Jessica, the most beautiful girl in the world. Or, at least, the most beautiful girl at Morty's high school. That's the world, right? Morty leaned against his open locker door and watched as she talked with her friends. Most of the time he didn't even listen while they talked, just watched her mouth move and admired her laughing. Somehow, everything about her was perfect from her hair to her shoes to her perfect teeth. He sighed and closed the door just in time to hear the last bit of the girls' conversation.

"I don't know, I just wish guys around here were more mature! Like guys with money, you know?" Jessica enthused.

Morty felt his heart leap. _He_ was mature. He was practically an adult after all the shit he'd gone through with Rick. All he had to do was find a way to show Jessica that he was mature enough for her. Then, there was the second part of that statement; Morty needed a way to get money. Sure, with one of Rick's weird invention things he could get as much money as he wanted, probably, but Jessica had toseehim make money. Then, she would see that he was mature. All of this led to one conclusion: he needed a job. He had considered getting a job when his dad got fired, but he was only fourteen at the time. Now that he was barely older, he was sure he could snag a position at any fast food place in town. Maybe he could work at the gas station or something like that. There had to be just tons of employers out there looking for minors with zero skills or experience!

He was making a mental list of every place he was pretty sure would hire fifteen year olds when the bell finally rang. He headed toward Mr. Goldenfold's room quickly, knowing if he was even two minutes late, they'd assume he wasn't coming. They would have been right to assume that, because Morty was only a couple feet from the door when Rick scared the shit out of him by popping out of a portal in the middle of the hallway. He grabbed Morty's arm and pulled him back through, ending up in the garage. "Morty, my main," he spoke through burps, "my main man! Let's get ready to gooooo."

"Rick, what the hell, uh I would've come anyways, you don't have to- to grab me like that."

Rick actually did not care what Morty was saying. He grabbed his grandson's arm again, pulling him through yet another portal, this time with some device in his other hand. When they came out the other side, Rick still stood normally, while Morty mostly fell onto his knees. Maybe in a year or two, he'd get the hang of it. He was already better at it than he was when they first started their adventures together. To be honest, he was getting better at pretty much everything. Rick was pretty proud of his grandson, despite him being a total pain in the ass most of the time.

"Ow, Rick, what the- like what the hell, man? Y-You gotta explain yourself sometimes," the boy whined.

Rick laughed emphatically and Morty could tell it was fake as he gestured toward him. "Ha, my grandson everybody. He's, uh, haha, he's a reeeal character. So funny," Rick pointed. "And as you can see, Melanie," Rick said as he turned to a man-looking thing with weird tentacle fingers, "I'm greeeeat with kids."

"R-Rick, what the hell? Did you drag me out of school so you could get laid?" Morty whined.

"Haha, Morty, shut up," Rick grumbled, trying to sound friendly through his teeth.

It wasn't often that Morty genuinely got mad at his grandfather. Usually there was a sense of pity and sadness and sometimes even guilt, but Morty couldn't find it in himself to feel bad for Rick. If somebody asked him to explain how he felt, the kid probably couldn't come up with a word other than red. _The idiot._ "C-Can I talk to you for a second, Rick?" he seethed. Rick brushed him off, laughing with Melanie. "Rick! Riiiick," Morty pushed.

"Jesus Christ, Morty, what do you want?" Rick snapped.

Something in Morty broke and he just fucking screamed. "Rick, you know, you're being a real, you know, a real dick right now. Are you even l-listening to me right now? You can't keep pulling me, pulling me out of school just so you can get y-your dick wet, Rick."

"Yeah, yeah, Morty, we'll talk about it later," Rick waved.

"No!" Morty stomped. "Take me home or take me to school. I can't, I can't keep missing out on my own life." When Rick didn't answer, Morty just kept going. "You are the most, the selfish-est person I've ever met. D-Do you even care? You're kinda ruining my life, you know, and it'd be c-cool if you would just take me back."

If he didn't know his grandpa, Morty would have thought he'd seen an _emotion_ go over his face. Face red with anger or disgust or embarrassment, Rick opened a portal, still looking at his grandson. He didn't even look at the portal as he motioned to it. "Gooo, if that's what you want. I don't care, Morty. Go rot in school," he said as he turned away to talk to another party-goer.

Morty stepped through without a second thought. He didn't fight with Rick often, but lately he'd been pushing it. And Morty had just been so _irritable._ Call it hormones or just too much time together, Morty was beginning to resent his grandfather. Of course he _loved him_ and he was _afraid of losing him_ and all that sappy shit, but whatever. He tripped into the hallway almost exactly where Rick had picked him up not ten minutes ago, a couple speds from across the hall staring at him as he fell. Morty just glared at them through the window as he walked into Mr. Goldenfold's room.

"Morty Smith," the man chided. "I'd say I'm disappointed you're late, but I'm just surprised you're here."

The class gave an obligatory chuckle, the ass-kissers, as Morty walked by. He ducked his head, ears warm with anger and embarrassment. Fuck these guys. The only person in the school worth knowing was Jessica, and he'd be damned if he stayed invisible to her much longer. He'd walk home today, he decided. And he'd stop at every store and restaurant on the way and grab applications.


	2. Chapter 2

As he tinkered in the garage, Rick couldn't help the vague feeling of worry in his stomach: that something was about to go wrong, something bad was going to happen and he wasn't sure what it was or if he could stop it. He dropped his screwdriver on the work bench and wiped the sweat from his brow. Whistling absent-mindedly, he made his way into the kitchen. Beth was standing at the counter and she smiled when she saw him.

"Hey, dad, would you mind helping Jerry with the TV? Something about the tint or whatever," she asked.

Rick laughed, still digging through the fridge. "Sure, but next time he could just ask." At last he found the orange juice burried in the back of the fridge and poured himself a glass. "Does he know he can fix it in the settings menu?"

Beth shrugged as her father walked into the living room with his drink. She worried about him sometimes, his age and his adventures sometimes getting the best of him. Things seemed to be okay, though. Everything was slowing down as Morty prepared for college, and all three of them were starting to feel a little empty-nested. Beth was smiling at her father and her husband when everything went to hell.

Just as Rick picked up the remote, a scream came from outside. He dropped his glass and the remote and started for the sliding door. The screaming got louder, and it was easy to tell that whatever was happening, it was happening to more and more people. The yard was normal, but just beyond, Rick could see smoke, just the tips of flames and something metal. People were running around, nobody knowing what to do as a swarm of _something_ came out of metal hatches on a large _orb_. Rick sprinted through the door just in time for another orb to land in their back yard, and he stopped to stare as the cat-like aliens poured out of the hatch.

"Basement," he yelled to his family as he ran inside. "Everybody under the garage, right now!"

He grabbed Beth's wrist as he passed her in the kitchen, Jerry following behind them closely. Once they were in the garage, Rick pressed a button on one of the panels on his wall. A small trap door opened and Rick helped Beth climb down into it. Jerry went down after, and Rick was about to enter when he heard Beth gasp.

"What about Morty?" she pleaded. "Where is he?"

Rick's eyes widened and he promised Beth he'd find her son. Morty had been his best friend, at least on this planet, basically since he was a toddler playing with Rick's screwdrivers and losing bolts in the garage. Needless to say, Rick was running when he left the garage. His dead leg was killing him as he ran, an old wound from an adventure years ago, but he kept going. He swung around the corner and up the stairs to Morty's room, but he wasn't there. _Jesus Christ_ , the kid picked today to finally leave the house. If he was outside, there was no way Rick could protect him.

"Rick!" he heard from downstairs. The door slammed shut immediately after. "Rick, where is everyone?" Morty asked as his grandfather hurried down the stairs.

Rick's head was spinning and suddenly they were all by the door, Beth and Jerry, too, and he still couldn't shake the feeling that this was where it ended. "Get back in the garage," he instructed, thinking they must have come to find Morty. "Let's go, hurry."

Beth shook her head and her brows were pushed together with worry and fear and a gross amalgamation of every emotion in between. "They're in the garage; they're everywhere."

As she said it, the aliens rushed them, coming from all directions and, apparently, taking no prisoners. The four of them stood there for only a moment before trying to dash out the living room door, go upstairs, go anywhere, but Beth was the first down. They shot her twice, once in the arm and then a fatal shot to the back of her head. The remaining three couldn't take the time yet to mourn, just scream as they kept running. Jerry was next. Rick wasn't sure how they got him, just that he fell and he didn't get back up and there was no time to stop and help. Then it was just Rick and Morty. They went up the stairs and found no aliens up there, so they ran into Morty's room.

Rick shut the door quietly, hoping to buy some time hiding. He threw open drawers but there was nothing in them that could help; the only thing that could help them now was his portal gun, and that was in the garage where he was working on it. Morty was leaning up on the door, back pressed hard against the wood. Rick reached out, tried to tell him to move away from the door, but it was too late. Rick couldn't do anything as an alien on the other side pressed his gun to the door and pulled the trigger. A single shot through Morty's neck brought him to the ground. Rick was dizzy, his head was spinning and there was no helping it as he forced his legs to move. He heard another shot hit the doorknob and heard the door swing open, but he was already climbing down out the window.

He ran as fast as his old legs would take him, looking around the corner of the house to see what the garage looked like. He saw only one of the creatures and its back was turned, so he thought _maybe_ , but his luck wasn't good enough. As he lunged for the gun on the work bench, the thing turned around and scratched him. He managed to grab the portal gun, but his arm was bleeding profusely as he opened a portal _inside_ the alien, ripping it in half. He stepped through and found himself in almost an exact copy of his own garage.

He heard voices coming, so he shoved himself in a cupboard and tried to calm his breathing. There was nothing he could do about the blood he had already dripped on the floor, but he wrapped his arm in a makeshift tourniquet from his lab coat. The voices kept getting closer until two people walked into the garage. Rick could barely see it, but it looked like a Rick and a younger Morty, maybe two or three years younger than his. He had to fix his breathing again after remembering his own Morty, so he decided to distract himself by watching the copycats.

"So, I've been thinking about getting a job," the Fake Morty said.

 **There's... so much violence... Anyways this is obviously not the Rick from chapter one, and some of the differences you may have noticed will be explained.** **Tell me what you think, or don't, I won't tell you what to do.**


End file.
